VoIP Management

VoIP Network Performance Management
As Voice-over-IP (VoIP) moves from test to full-blown implementations in more and more organizations, the ability to distinguish, track and protect voice traffic-as well as mission-critical and revenue-affecting applic

VoIP Management

VoIP
Network Performance Management
As Voice-over-IP (VoIP) moves from test to full-blown implementations in more and more organizations, the ability to distinguish, track and protect voice traffic-as well as mission-critical and revenue-affecting applications
- becomes paramount. Having integrated tools for monitoring and troubleshooting performance of your voice and application traffic simultaneously is essential.
The nGenius Solution leverages rich, actionable information to provide the visibility and control necessary for monitoring, troubleshooting, and planning for VoIP technologies both in the corporate LAN or across your MPLS WAN.

The VoIP management challenge
The slowly maturing VoIP platform has enterprises taking a long look at this technology, and not just for cost savings. Many of these potential users are opting for in-house rather than service-provider solutions because of the additional savings, future flexibility, and a simple lack of consistent vision by the large telco providers.
Those adventurous souls who implement VoIP themselves face the daunting task of managing a voice-oriented data network. For network managers accustomed to data networks, this job requires a specialized toolkit.
To determine the best option for the enterprise market, we gathered four VoIP testing contenders and turned them loose on the VoIP installations at our Advanced Network Computing Laboratory (ANCL) testing facility at the University of Hawaii.

VoIP
ManagementIt's clear that VoIP technology is the future of telephony, making effective VoIP management the task of every telecom manager. As the convergence of voice and data networks raises new challenges, telecom managers are seeking new solutions. For example, VoIP technology has introduced a whole new set of security concerns. It is no longer just IT network administrators who have to worry about viruses and denial of service attacks. And because VoIP technology is usually added on to a legacy TDM system, voice networks are becoming much more complex to manage. That's why telecom managers around the world are turning to SecureLogix for superior VoIP management solutions.

Business communication and VoIP Management
Network management vendor NetIQ claims it has a way to answer the question a bit more definitively. Last month, the company announced two products, one that aims to give enterprises information before they deploy voice over IP (VOIP), the other to help manage VOIP systems as they go into pilot and, ultimately, full deployment.
The first product is called VOIP Assessor. It's a software package designed to let enterprises generate traffic loads that will imitate a full VOIP system's traffic across the network. Such measurements provide information that can't be gleaned from a pilot that simply uses an IP PBX and a few dozen IP phones, according to Steve Joyce, director of network technologies at NetIQ.

The Improve VoIP
ManagementA successful voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) deployment requires careful consideration of and adequate planning for the system's long-term management requirements. Your deployment and integration plans must identify the methods and technologies through which you will monitor, support, and maintain reliability across the VoIP network. Voice traffic is considerably more sensitive to network conditions than normal data traffic and your management plans account for this fact.
Along with VoIP management's technical requirements, your plan should also address potential personnel issues and functional task changes. Dedicated telecommunications personnel normally administer voice systems and conduct voice-specific tasks. As you integrate VoIP with the IP network, these responsibilities may be shifted to or shared with native data-networking staff.

The wake-up call for VoIP Management
Service providers are beginning to recognize the importance of VoIP management as an important element of their long-term VoIP investment.
For some carriers there is a true ?disconnect? between the two areas due to poor planning.
In fact, recent discussions with enterprise telecom managers indicate that VoIP Quality of Service (QoS) and security are critical concerns that must be solved before large scale VoIP service adoption occurs. During the next three years, enterprises will assess their VoIP requirements including business need and impact, costs and technical staffing. Many will turn to outsourcing because of the high level of complexity. To seize this
opportunity, carriers must better understand the importance of managing VoIP.

VOIP Management for BusinessesDespite promises of streamlined efficiency and ease of convergence, network managers are discovering that running voice calls over the data network is rarely simple.
To help the growing number of businesses turning to IP telephony, vendors are adding functions to make VOIP (voice over IP) management easier, and they're adding services for enterprises that can't make VOIP work on their own.
Avaya Inc., which has been selling IP telephony systems for three years, this week at the VoiceCon conference in Orlando, Fla., will unveil its Enterprise Service Platform to give customers the option of letting the vendor remotely monitor the network on a subscription basis. Avaya's Secure Intelligent Gateway connects the vendor's network operations center to the customer's site, providing a simultaneous view of voice and data streams.

VoIP Solution and Target management Holes A study released last week shows that the growing adoption of VoIP service among enterprises is exposing "critical weaknesses" in the tools used to manage those networks. The report, called "The VoIP Management Gap: Problems and Solutions," was published last week by Light Reading's Enterprise VoIP Insider. It looks at the challenges of VoIP, including service-quality issues and the impact of sub-par management tools. The lack of such tools is motivating experienced data management vendors, such as IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Cisco, to move into the space via acquisition. These companies will be welcomed with open arms by customers that want to deploy VoIP networks with minimal performance hiccups, such as jitter, latency and packet loss.

VoIP
Performance ManagementThe banking industry is all about mitigating risk, and UMB Bank did just that with its recent VoIP implementation by adding a performance management system to the mix. The Kansas City, Mo.-based firm, with 150 banking centers throughout six states and approximately 3,500 employees, decided that a next-generation VoIP system would best suit its communications needs.
Bill Taylor, assistant vice president and manager of network services at UMB Bank, said because its previous network infrastructure was aging and in need of replacement, the IT staff developed a strategy to provide its various locations with more reliable network service to support VoIP.
We looked at legacy key and PBX systems, but quickly discovered there was no next generation for those products because everything was being developed around VoIP technology," he said. "But we realized that to roll out a new voice system at these locations, we'd have to change our network
architecture.